A Flow Controlled Virtual Connection (FCVC) protocol for use in a distributed switching architecture is presently known in the art, and is briefly discussed below with reference to FIG. 1. This protocol involves communication of status (buffer allocation and current state) on a per virtual connection, such as a virtual channel connection or virtual path connection, basis between individual upstream and downstream network elements to provide a "no cell loss" guarantee. A cell is the unit of data to be transmitted. Each cell requires a buffer to store it.
One example of this protocol involves a credit-based flow control system, where a number of connections exist within the same link with the necessary buffers established and flow control monitored on a per-connection basis. Buffer usage over a known time interval, the link round-trip time, is determined in order to calculate the per-connection bandwidth. A trade-off is established between maximum bandwidth and buffer allocation per connection. Such per-connection feedback and subsequent flow control at the transmitter avoids data loss from an inability of the downstream element to store data cells sent from the upstream element. The flow control protocol isolates each connection, ensuring lossless cell transmission for that connection.
Connection-level flow control results in a trade-off between update frequency and the realized bandwidth for the connection. High update frequency has the effect of minimizing situations in which a large number of receiver cell buffers are available, though the transmitter incorrectly believes the buffers to be unavailable. Thus it reduces the number of buffers that must be set aside for a connection.
Under certain circumstances, it is desirable to model a single transmitter queue as a Virtual Path Connection (VPC) providing data cells to plural queues associated with a single receiver processor, each receiver queue regarded as Virtual Channel Connection (VCC). Prior art protocols fail, however, to enable connection-level flow control elements associated with the single transmitter queue to jointly flow control the plural receiver queues. Rather, each connection from transmitter queue to receiver queue must be individually flow controlled, resulting in a redundant and bandwidth-inefficient control mechanism.